This blog is about fairness; about looking at objects from multiple perspectives. Stable transformation comes only slowly; and only if the environment is free of sporadic jitters of passion and anger that destabilize growth. I strongly believe that the path to peace crosses through the battle with self.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

You can start by buying his outstanding album, with which he has subjected himself to eternal exile from the Islamic Republic of Iran; with which he has broken almost any cultural & musical rule ever practices in Iran; with which your goose bumps turn to goose mountains, your jaw drops, and you are left breathless with the courage of his genius. Although extremely avant-garde, Namjoo is well trained in Persian traditional music and literature--elements which he mixes with rock, jazz, blues and some other new stuff which I don't have a name or description for.

Making his album a best-seller will be a GREAT slap to IRI's ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance who thinks by alienating our artists and forcing them to exile, they can get rid of them by "throwing the fish out of the water."

My favorite tracks are: 5, 6 and 8. I love the rest too, but they are in the tradition of his previous outstanding work; that for me reached the summit of success in Toranj.

This costs only 3 Starbuck cups of coffee--and it is for a great cause! (If you buy his songs, let me know and I will try to translate them for you.)

The extra two will make great gifts.I'm not a super big Namjoo fan. I mean, I like his work, but not too much. But like you said, this goes beyond liking or disliking ... this is for a cause. It's personal.

Speculations about the foreign currency flow to Turkey have increased. Recently, there is a claim that chunks of gold were brought from Iran. While the government and bureaucracy denied the existence of chunks of gold, they can not explain unregistered foreing currency.http://english.sol.org.tr/news/turkey/where-did-18-billion-dollars-come-722

I'm very much in favour of a Namjoo lyrics+translations project complete with website - multilingual please! and I volunteer to translate the English versions into Italian - via email parvati_roma at yahoo.it :-)

Only Namjoo song I'm aware of that has an online English version is Zolf Bar Baad on YouTube - beautiful Hafez poem with equally beautiful vid. - translation kindly provided by uploader (click "more" in the box in the upper right-hand corner for full text).

Translating Namjoo is in fact very difficult. I think it is maybe more important to first get a handle of his music.

His lyrics are often collages of other's poems, he mixes old and new and adds to them, but contextualizes them very "locally", the subtlety will be lost in translation, and educating someone who has not grown-up with those poems subconsciously, translation will only make them cumbersome.

This is why I referenced Rumi. Rumi, however is only "part" of what he sings, most of the rest of his song is about making music with his vocal cord and the instruments he plays.

Can you imagine translating any of Beatles' Hallucinogenic songs to Italian or French? :)

"Can you imagine translating any of Beatles' Hallucinogenic songs to Italian or French? "

Yes - some come out quite well, others less so, but far better for non-English-speaking fans to have at least a vague idea of what the song is "about" (lit. trans. + footnotes) than be left totally "in the dark". You have no idea how frustrating it can be to hear someone with a fascinating voice sing a very musically-intense song with no orientation-idea of the content/context of the lyrics! So when the Beatles first hit Italy, Italian kids used to swap approximate translations at school. And my daughter - who speaks only Italian, has so-so reading knowledge of English - is always calling on me to check her attempts at translating her favorite songs by English-speaking bands.

Here's an experiment for you - two of the loveliest songs by Italy's great jazzman-songwriter-poet Paolo Conte - Max and Alle prese con una verde milonga.. If you can listen to them without dying of curiosity to know what the words he's singing are "about", you win! ... but if you can't, I'll give you a quick approx-translation to relieve your frustration. Let me know how you get on... ;-).

One day, you wake up and you find yourself wastedNo one is around you, you have forgotten everyoneA few more gray hairs on you the wanderer manYour birthday party's again like a funeralYou're completely exasperatedYour hunch's larger and your shoulders have fallen morelook around you, dry and wet burn together (3)

This's why they call being born in Asia geographic determinismbecause you are in daily limbo, your breakfast is cigarette and tea(repeats this several times times, as it fades into the background and the following slowly comes to the foreground of the song:)

You divine highness, then what's in your head?When are you going to do something for us? (and then repeats this too)

Minute 3; starts from the beginning.

Minute 4: complete shift; as if a new chhapter starts

That they put your hand on your head; putThat they ignore you; ignoreThat they don't let you in their game; let (this reiterates recursive on itself--very nice)That they tease you; tease

not suffering anything, was googling for mohsen translations and came across your ridiculous blog... i find it ironic that it is because of tactics like yours that iran is in such a sorry state..empty promises and then avoiding valid statements or questions by bringing up unrelated questions with a smile... i can think of a certain president who is an expert at that tactic

with your bilingual ability, you could have provided some translations that even if not perfect would have extended the reach of mohsen's messages and provided a lot more contribution to the world than spreading uncorroborated rumors about things like the number of rings iran’s supreme leader owns

About Me

I am an Iranian woman. I am not an activist of any feminist cause, but my tales are those of the resilience of my country, half-filled with mothers, sisters, wives and lovers of different shades of creativity and participation. Here, I show a bit of how we resist, as men and women.